


Blinded

by GhostNox181



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Demons, M/M, Magic, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostNox181/pseuds/GhostNox181
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beware the one with the silver eye, hidden beneath no soul doth lie, let your every step ring true, or his deadly gaze shall come for you.</p><p>John has been partially blinded in the war against the Lost Souls, demons released from captivity. He returns to his home, a home wary of those who must cover their eyes due to a tale that tells of a monster that takes the souls of those who fall from good graces. Now an Untouchable, his only friend seems to be Sherlock Holmes, who isn't afraid of going out after curfew, whose eyes seem to glow silver in the light, and who has an unhealthy obsession with death.</p><p>But monsters aren't real. Are they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blinded

**Author's Note:**

> This my first published Johnlock story, and I've gone the supernatural route. Please be easy on me! I've also chosen present tense.... which I never, ever do. If you have any questions, or anything is not clear, just ask! I'm not looking to make this long, perhaps three, four parts at most. Unbeta-ed, but I think I'm a rather good editor myself.
> 
> I don't do gushy, mushy, or cuddly. I don't do smut. I'm sorry. But there will be Johnlock, have no fear.
> 
> Please, enjoy!

_Beware the silver of his eye_

_For in its depths the edge draws near_

_Hidden beneath no soul doth lie_

_Taken in the name of Fear_

_Keep sacred thy word and guard thy name_

_Let your every step ring true_

_Should another’s breath take thy blame_

_His deadly gaze shall come for you_

 

A prayer, whispered to the darkness, to remind children not to go out after curfew. A warning to the people that they remain careful, honest, virtuous. That they obey the rules set by the High Order. 

Don’t go out after midnight. Don’t leave your house alone. Take care of your friends and neighbors. Always carry a means of protection (even though it was known that they could not be protected should _he_ come). Always check that the person next to you has both eyes before talking to them. If one or both eyes are covered, get away. Do not fight. Do not attack. Do nothing to provoke _him_. Obey the rules and you’ll be safe. 

 

~}-{~

 

John stares up at the big gate surrounding the city. He readjusts his dark sunglasses against the glare from the sun and shifts his backpack to his other shoulder, his uninjured one. Then he sighs.

It’s been nearly four years since he left. Four years since he determinedly set off to fight in the war against the Lost. Four years since he’s seen anyone in this city, or had any contact with any of them.

He doesn’t know what to expect. He’s hoping they’ll remember him; he’s not looking for a welcome home party, or a glad you’re not dead dinner. He just wants acknowledgement. Reasons to know that coming back here wasn’t a mistake. Not that he had anywhere else to go. He’s flat broke.

He’s going to stop by his sister’s first. He may not have had any contact with her for four years, but he’s not ignorant. He’s aware that she’s trying to stop drinking, that she’s recently divorced her wife, and that she may not be as receptive to his return as he would like her to be. And he loves his sister, he really does, but he’s not going to ask to stay with her. It would be tense and awkward with John’s new predicament.

So he’s got to find something else. Someone who won’t mind if he can’t pay rent for a month or two, until he finds a decent job. It’ll be hard, he knows, as he’s just returned to war with a still-bandaged shoulder and limp that his therapist back in the High City claimed was psychosomatic. John knows she was probably speaking the truth, but he’s not ready to give in just yet. 

Then there’s his eye.

He knows that’ll be hardest for people to understand. That’s why he came home. It’s why he wants for people to remember him. He needs people who knew him before the war, before he had been caught in an explosion which rendered one of his eyes useless. This world does not take easily to the blind or those with eye problems. And now John has taken to wearing dark sunglasses or an eye patch to prevent further injury to his eye. And to stop the questions.

There are still the stares.

He had felt them on the train home, in the station, on the streets. Even the nurse patching him up had given him a wide berth. He is now one of the outsiders, an Untouchable, like the leprosy outbreak when the High Order was first established nearly five hundred years ago. Nobody wants to be near him. Those that do carefully avert their gaze.

Frowning, John pushes the small door in the gate to his city of London open and cautiously steps through. The streets are not as busy as he remembers, probably as a result of the war. He leans heavily on his cane, watching the people pass him by. Nobody pays him much attention, and he is quite all right with that.

“John? John Watson, is that you?” a motherly voice asks. John tilts his head slightly to left, his one good eye scanning the crowd for the voice. His eyes land on a thin old woman pushing her way past the weary shoppers to get the war-ridden man.

“Mrs. Hudson! Lovely to see you. You haven’t aged a day,” John tells the woman kindly, allowing the woman to wrap him in a tight hug once she reaches him, which he returns in kind.

“Nonsense, dear. I feel like I’ve aged a thousand years, but it’s kind of you to say so. Do you have anywhere to be? I would love to have a bit of tea and catch up on the man who thought it would be funny to run off and give his old nanny a heart attack,” Mrs. Hudson informs him, her tone stating she will not take no for an answer. John sighs, laughing lightly as Mrs. Hudson gives him a good look-over, tutting over his wounds. 

“I would love to sit and talk, Mrs. Hudson. But I really need to stop by Harry’s first. I’m a bit terrified, and I think it’s best if I just get it over with. How about after? I can’t imagine it’ll be too long; Harry and I never did get along even on the best of days,” John suggests, his mind already swarming with possibilities on how this conversation with Harry is going to end.

“Of course, dear. You know, even if she’ll not admit it, she was worried about you. Don’t tell her you know, though. She won’t like that I told you. Good, then. I’ll make you dinner; you’ve lost far too much weight, and you were far too skinny to begin. Now run along; don’t keep your sister waiting,” Mrs. Hudson shoos him, and he gives her a genuine smile. It will be nice not to worry about dinner and if he will eat that night. Mrs. Hudson will take care of him. And he knows that, if need be, he can always ask to stay with her for a night or two.

He begins to hobble away, down the street to where Harry’s flat is, when he hears his old nanny call to him. He stops for a second and turns to give her a solemn nod. He understands what she is saying as well as anyone.

“And John, remember. Curfew is ten!”

 

~}-{~

 

He knocks. No sound comes from within. Sighing, which he realizes he’s been doing a lot lately, he knocks louder. There’s a curse then the sound of breaking glass, and the door unlocks. He puts on a gentle smile as the door opens slowly, the slightly intoxicated face of his sister coming into view. He registers that she’s not quite drunk enough yet to not recognize him, but drunk enough for the string of curses to fly from her mouth with no regret.

“Holy fuck. I thought you were fucking dead. Shit, Johnny. _Shit!_ What the _fuck_ were you thinking!” she shouts at him, and he only calmly stares at her, waiting for her shocked anger to finish. 

When it seems that she has nothing more to yell (after ten minutes of screaming and swearing and one frightening moment where John had to dodge the slap that she drunkenly threw at him), she lets him in, and then John is sitting on her couch, sipping tea, watching his sister warily.

“So, you’re back. Not exactly in one piece, but here,” She says tiredly, as if the whole world has suddenly come crashing down on her shoulders. For the past four years, she’s mourned a brother whose status she has no idea about. She’s had no idea if he’s been alive or dead and so settling on dead seemed like the best answer, and he’s made no attempt at contacting her to let her know otherwise. Then here he is, battered but alive. And the anger she’s had building up has just been released. She has nothing left to feel but weariness.

“Technically I am in one piece. I’m just war-torn is all,” He jokes lightly, but it does little to ease the tension in the room. Harry does crack a teensy, tiny smile, but then she is scowling, angry all over again. 

“How could you! How could you just leave like that? Just go running off to who fucking knows where? Without telling anyone? Me, I completely understand. But you didn’t even tell Mrs. Hudson! And then here you are? And I learn you were in the _war! The bloody fucking war!_ And now you’ve been shot in the shoulder, you’re on a fucking cane, and you’ve gone blind in one eye. This might be your home, but people aren’t just going to accept you as easily as me and Mrs. Hudson anymore!”

John has enough. Half-way through her rant he had set down his tea and grit his teeth. It wasn’t that he was angry at Harry; no he was angry that she was telling him the blunt truth, and he wasn’t ready to accept it at face value. So he had left? It was his choice.

He jumps up from the couch, startling Harry. He’s never been known to be particularly violent. “Don’t you think I know that? For Christ’s sake, Harry, all people have been doing is give me stares. They won’t talk to me, won’t look at me; I can hear them telling their children not to go near me! I’m a walking plague! And I get it, I really do. You’re hurt because I just left without telling anyone! But don’t you even care _why_ I left? Doesn’t anybody want to know? Well too fucking bad!”

Harry stares at him in stunned silence, and without another word to his sister, he picks up his cane and storms from the flat, as quickly as his pathetic limp will allow.

 

~}-{~

 

The city of London is one of the older cities, built not too long after the High City. Unlike the High City, however, it has been worn down by time and war, and even the air surrounding the buildings and lazily drifting by in a random brush of wind is tinged with exhaustion and age. The buildings, no new ones for the last century, stand tall and proud but their paint is faded and dreary. The streets are close together and offer little room in the way of traffic, excepting the few taxis that the Second Order declared it necessary to have. Vegetation is sparse at best, with only imported trees dotting the sidewalks at various intervals, and one park at the very heart of the city that is the only sign of life.

The people of London were not always as tired as their city. They used to be an active bunch, wildly partying and traveling the world, generously throwing their gated doors open to anyone who wanted to come. But when the Lost attacked, seeking revenge, the war took a heavy poll on the old city, and its people turned away from the world. The gates were shut and outsiders were shunned, and it became something of a myth to see someone return once having left, if they dared to leave the safety of their city at all. The Londoners were hiding from the Lost, hiding from the damned, hoping that for once, ignorance would be best. And it seemed that it had been so far.

Until now, of course.

It was no hidden secret that John Watson, perfect little John Watson, who always showed up for school and took care of his sister and never bullied anyone and always said please and thank you; John Watson had run away. He had left London. Living in a city so old with all the same people meant that nobody had any secrets unless they were talented enough to keep them. Few wanted to have something someone could hold over them. So gossip traveled quickly. And the main question on everybody’s mind was: _Why?_

Everyone knew that he had gone, but nobody had known why. And now, in the short hours he had returned, the rumors were flying. It was obvious he had been injured; the only way to sustain such injuries was in a fight with a Lost Soul. Reasonable thought? He had been in the war. But _why?_ Why did one of their own, one of the people of tired old London, quiet London, peaceful London; why did he run off to fight in the war?

And more importantly, why did he come back?

And it went without saying. What happened to his eye?

For the first time in several centuries, uneasiness was settling over the city like a blanket, and though most inhabitants were unaware of the idea that perfect little John Watson could be anything but the polite little boy he had been before he left, most felt the question ringing in the air.

Was he still John Watson?

 

~}-{~

 

Mrs. Hudson had been around far longer than she cared to let on. She had seen many things, some great, some good, some terrible. But the day her little charge was brought to her, she felt something she had not felt before. She spent most of her life trying to raise him right, show him good from evil, right from wrong, what one can do versus what one should do. And for the most part, he had turned out alright.

Still, she sometimes wonders if Sherlock Holmes would have been better off just raising himself.

He had been brilliant from the start. Not in the way that most adults praise children when they say something remotely intelligent. No, little Sherlock Holmes had been a child genius. From as young as three he had been mastering spells and curses that Mrs. Hudson had only ever heard of the sorcerers of the High Order using. It had been remarkable, and a tad frightening. He remembered everything he ever read, saw, was told; he called his mind a hard drive and that he could delete unnecessary information. Mrs. Hudson found he rarely did. 

He had been far too curious for his own good. He always had to know everything. If he didn’t know, he found out. What he couldn’t find out, he tricked people into telling him. He was scarily manipulative. Perhaps that had been his older brother’s influence. Mycroft Holmes, who had gone off to attain what he would tell you was a low end position in the High City’s Order, but he really had far more control than he let on. Really, the whole family was strange.

But little Sherlock was by far the most intriguing, and though he sometimes used Mrs. Hudson’s home objects in his many experiments, and she would often find something exploded or a plate cursed beyond repair, she loved the little boy. Somebody needed to. He had been dropped at her home because nobody wanted him. It was easy to see why; the young boy had a knack for saying just the right thing to get under someone’s skin. Sometimes it appeared he knew he was doing it, and did it for that reason, but most of the time it almost seemed that the young boy had no idea that what he said actually hurt. In fact, the longer Mrs. Hudson knew Sherlock, the more it seemed to her that he had no grasp of human interactions or even a basic idea of human emotion. He was always straight-forward, intense, and blunt. And whenever she tried to get him to apologize or feel regret for his words or an experiment gone wrong, he would just stare at her with a blank expression, as if she were speaking some foreign language he had not yet taken care to learn.

There was also the strange, but stunning way that Sherlock’s slate blue-green eyes looked silver in some light. Some people weren’t willing to take that risk. Mrs. Hudson was simply immune to such ridiculous ideas. There was no way that her little Sherlock, regardless of how odd his personality may seem, was the monster the High Order warned about.

It was for this reason that when little eleven year old Sherlock witnessed a murder and decided that he was going to become a consulting detective, the world’s only, she said nothing against it, and gave the little one her flat for when he returned from studying whatever it was he needed to study in the High City. And that was why she suddenly felt lonely and immediately put an ad out saying she was a nanny for hire. And that was why, when fifteen year old John Watson, whose parents were recently deceased and whose eighteen year old sister was a drunk, ended up staying with her, she was overjoyed.

 

~}-{~

 

“You should not have stormed out on her, dear.”

John sighs, staring into his tea like it holds all the answers. Sometimes he wishes it were that simple. “I know. But I know you feel hurt that I left, too. And it’s just irritating that nobody wants to know my side.”

Mrs. Hudson stirs her tea before sipping it thoughtfully, staring at the man before her. He really isn’t so much a man, though, but the scared and lonely boy that stood on her doorstep nearly ten years ago. But the war has taken its toll, and he looks older than the twenty-four years he is. “Perhaps we know you aren’t ready to tell us.”

“I never thought of that,” John mumbles.

“Of course you didn’t. No one ever does. But don’t fret. You’ll tell us when you’re ready. On to more important matters; do you have a place to stay?” Mrs. Hudson asks, and from the knowing look in her eyes, John knows that she knows he doesn’t and is too nervous to ask.

“Well, I’m looking… but not many people are going to want someone who has to keep one eye covered at all times. People are too superstitious,” He mutters. 

Mrs. Hudson laughs, a plan already forming in her mind. Her Sherlock had returned not months after John’s departure, even stranger than before. And if she has any say in the matter, she thinks he can use a friend. John, compassionate, kind, warm-hearted John, is perfect.

“I’ve got a flat you can stay in, John. Mind you, there is already someone there, so you’d have to be willing to share. And he’s a bit odd, but nothing I think you can’t handle. His eyes… well they seem silver sometimes. That won’t bother you will it?” Mrs. Hudson asks, but she already knows the answer. If not because he’s desperate and needs a place to stay, but because John is a genuinely good person and won’t let a silly superstition bother him. 

“Mrs. Hudson, I lost sight in one of my eyes and now must suffer through stares and whispers every day. I can barely walk and my shoulder is useless right now. I’d live with a corpse at this point, if that was what you were offering me. Honestly, I just need a bed and good place to make tea,” he admits with a small smile, rolling his shoulder out. 

Mrs. Hudson claps her hands together joyfully. “Wonderful! I’ll show you it right now. I have no idea if Sherlock is home right now or not; that boy keeps strange hours, paying no mind to curfew. I hope that doesn’t bother you. Anyhow, once you’ve finished your tea, we’ll take your bag over. It’s right across the hall. There’s the bedroom upstairs and Sherlock’s. If you need to switch because of your leg I’m sure we can convince him, although he might make some sort of terms regarding an experiment or spell he wants to try that otherwise might seem unethical,” Mrs. Hudson explains, already cleaning up the tea stuff. She knew that John had been going to say yes. It simply wasn’t in his nature to say otherwise.

“He’s a sorcerer, then?” 

Mrs. Hudson only smiles.

 

~}-{~

 

Mrs. Hudson had been right, of course. Sherlock’s eyes are the most peculiar shade of blue-green that John has ever seen. He’s not quick to label them silver; he’s seen enough bullets and swords and the metallic blood of the Lost to know the difference. But his eyes are a shade that John has never seen before, and for a moment, he’s captivated. Then Sherlock speaks.

“Where did you learn magic? It was before you left for the war, that much is obvious. We have few Healers here, however, so you must have been trained during the war. You can’t heal yourself though, so obviously you aren’t very good. Your Protection spells are significantly better, though that is something easily obtained in the army. A drunk for a sister means perhaps she was jealous of your ability to perform magic. She’s hidden it under the belief that she’s grieving for your dead parents, but she didn’t get along with them. Neither did you, but you tried to as that’s your father’s watch, likely passed down through generations, around your wrist. You still wear your dog tags, even though you’ve been invalided which signifies your longing to go back. Your therapist told you that your limp was psychosomatic. You believe her, however you are still suffering nightmares of the war and therefore the limp won’t go away. The bandage around your shoulder is real and suggests you’ve been shot, likely a normal bullet as you have no signs of poison or decay that would come from a curse. You’ve gone blind in your left eye, which although hidden from the world thanks to your glasses, is still tender and sore, and people who trusted you are now wary. Because of that, you’ve developed trust issues and likely suffer from depression.”

John only stares. Mrs. Hudson stands behind him, scowling at Sherlock from over John’s shoulder, hoping that Sherlock will at least understand that she’s upset with him. But Sherlock only frowns, confused at why Mrs. Hudson’s mad.

“That was… amazing!”

Both sets of eyes turn to him, shocked. Mrs. Hudson, although pleased, is baffled. She knows John to be kind, but she thought even he had restrictions. And she certainly thinks that having his hard history revealed to him would be his limit, but he just stands there smiling in wonder. Sherlock is staring at him, for once completely speechless. Nobody has ever reacted to him like that.

“Really?” Is all he can manage.

“Of course! That was extraordinary… that was quite extraordinary.”

“That’s… not what people usually say,” Sherlock mutters, still staring at John as if he’s finally found someone who appreciates him. As if the world suddenly makes sense.

“Really? What do they usually say?” And Mrs. Hudson just shakes her head, for she’s witnessed the millions of times Sherlock has done this, and the millions of different things people have said, and not many of them were anywhere near being nice.

“Piss off.”

And then John is laughing, because for some reason this revelation is funny, and the last couple hours of his life have been pure hell but this, this is easy and different, and this man just took one look at him before reciting his life story, and John can’t help but laugh at the whole situation. And Mrs. Hudson is frozen in shock because standing across from the laughing John is her odd Sherlock Holmes.

And he’s smiling.

 

~}-{~

 

“Did I get everything right?”

John is reading the newspaper while Sherlock lies on the couch staring at the ceiling, his hands in prayer formation under his chin. He’s been doing this for hours now, and John isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to be accomplishing, but he hasn’t asked and Sherlock hasn’t said anything so John continues to read the newspaper quietly.

“Sorry?”

Sherlock turns his captivating gaze to John, who is peering at him from over the newspaper, which holds nothing new about anything and John really doesn’t know why he’s reading it other than to have something to do.

“Did I get anything wrong?”

John shuffles a bit in his chair; his leg has gone a bit cramped and his shoulder is starting to hurt from sitting so long. Folding the newspaper and placing it back on the table in front of him, he meets Sherlock’s eyes and shrugs.

“Well my sister is a drunk and she does hate my parents. I wasn’t fond of them either, but I try to get along with everyone. This is my father’s watch, and it was my grandfather’s, and probably my great-grandfather’s but I never asked. I do believe my limp is psychosomatic, but it’s not easy to change that. I do still suffer from nightmares, but when you’ve seen what I have that comes with the territory. I do have trust issues, but you know the stories. Certainly you’ve heard what people say about you, so you can understand.”

“So I got everything, then. Normally there’s something off.”

John smiles here. “Well, not quite. First, my sister is not jealous of my magic. In fact, she has no idea. She drinks because my parents did. I’m self-taught, so my spells are not what they could be. But I’m quite adept. I can’t heal myself because my magic won’t allow it. I have tried. I learned my Protection spells from a sorcerer in the army who took a liking to me, which is why they are better. Again, however, I can’t protect myself. And I have been shot, but not by a bullet.”

Sherlock is watching him carefully, as if he is a new curiosity that Sherlock has to explore. John smiles at him innocently, but there is something in the air surrounding him, something Sherlock knows is dangerous, not in the harmful way, but in the way that means this older man before him has seen things that Sherlock could only wish to see. Things that would make a normal person cower. Yet, John is sitting there as if the world couldn’t have been better, as if he’s just stopped in for a bit of tea.

Perhaps that’s why Sherlock stops questioning him.

“Remove your glasses.”

John startles. He understands that some people are wary of a person if one or both eyes are covered, but Sherlock does not seem the type to have that superstition. In fact, he seems rather the opposite, reveling in the idea of the unknown. So when John fumbles and does nothing, Sherlock repeats the demand, sitting up.

Sighing, John slowly removes his dark sunglasses, revealing his one good eye, so perfectly powder blue that it seems liquid, and his sightless eye, now dark blue, like the color of the night sky. The color left it, faded from it with his ability to see, drained away as the magic took his sense of sight. The darkness clouded his vision, reminding everyone he has been cursed, he had fought, he has been touched by the Lost. That he is not to be messed with. That he is an Untouchable.

Yet, Sherlock is staring at him. Not disgusted. Not cowering. Not even trying to lower his gaze from the useless eye. He is just watching John, waiting for something, anything, and John is just sitting there, blinking, ignoring the tenderness that’s resonating from the dark spot registering from where his eye should be.

“Well? Have you got what you need?” John says, suddenly irritated. 

Sherlock says nothing, but stands up and picks up the violin that he warned John he plays randomly. John has no idea what this action means, but he takes it as a sign that he’s allowed to put his glasses back on. Surely Sherlock saw whatever it was that made him curious in the first place. Maybe John is wrong; maybe Sherlock really is superstitious and needed to make sure John isn’t the monster. 

John doesn’t believe there is one.

But he plays along. He always plays along. No reason to make people more suspicious of him. So instead of questioning Sherlock about his actions, he sits back and listens as Sherlock plays a random, erratic tune on his violin. It may be an odd choice of life, but for some reason he feels he could get used to it.

That is, until Sherlock is silent, staring out the window intently. Then he is throwing down his violin, and Sherlock is dashing out the door shouting about some murder, and how he’ll be back and not to worry about him, and then he’s rushing back in staring at John with that pensive but knowing stare.

“Are you any good at Protection spells?”

John hesitates, wondering what he’s up to, but answers nonetheless. “Quite.”

“And you’re healing, that makes you a good doctor, right? So you can tell a cause of death and such?”

Oh, John thinks. He can see where this is going. He suddenly wonders why Mrs. Hudson thought this would be a good idea, but instead of telling Sherlock to go do whatever it is he’s about to do _by himself_ , after all curfew has passed, he finds himself answering, “Yes, yes it does.”

There’s a pause.

“It’ll be dangerous.”

And then John is following Sherlock out the door, out into the night, without another question.


End file.
